Growing Up Boulder worked with Jennifer Douglas-Larsson’s 10th grade AVID class at Boulder High School on the Boulder Civic Area Project. During this semester long project, we worked with students to not only examine what they like and don't like about the Civic Area, but they learned about public spaces in general. Students interviewed family members about great public spaces in their own lives, visited the Boulder History Museum to learn about the history of the land, and participated in a photogrid project about the Civic Area. The students then compiled their findings into presentations that they will present to a GUB-Civic Area class at Casey Middle School and to the general public.

During this project, the class heard an inspiring presentation on great public spaces from landscape architect Shane Coen, talked with an ENVD CU undergrad student, Gianni Franceschi, about diversity in the civic area and his own experiences studying the space, and shared their vision for the civic area with senior urban designer for the City, Sam Assefa. Two students even presented their ideas to City Council on November 1st and invited them to learn more about their ideas on this website! Click here to see them in action (approximately minute marker 20:30)!

Student Work & Projects

Family Interviews & Public Spaces

Students interviewed family members about their favorite public spaces. This allowed the class to gather ideas of great public spaces from around the world, as many of the students' parents are from other countries or other parts of the US. It also served as an opportunity for our high-schoolers to connect with their families and see them in a different light: as experts. Interview questions included: was the place safe?, what makes the space fun?, and was it a place for everyone? Click on the images below to see some of their work!

Photogrid Project

The 10th grade AVID class overlaid a grid on top of a map of the civic area as a way to divide and analyze the civic area space. Pairs of students chose two squares to analyze; they did so by photographing interesting features of their areas. A worksheet from the Project for Public Spaces called, "The Placemaking Game" guided the youth in their study and observations of the area. Once they returned to the classroom, students selected their best photos, added written descriptions of their areas, and organized the photos into a final photogrid layout. Click on the image below to view the group poster!